John chapter 11, verses 28 through 37 this morning. You can find them on the bottom of page 897 in the Pew Bible. John 11, starting in verse 28, page 897 in the Pew Bible. Lazarus was dead to begin with. Poor Lazarus, we're working through this text so slowly that he's still dead, where we are in the story. We've left him in the tomb for over a month, but that is okay, because death is our context. This is a story about death, and since life in this fallen world always and ultimately ends in death, this story about death is then very much also a story about life, about our life. So we need to sort out our death problem, but we also very much need to sort out our life problem. I'm not so sure I entirely have yet. Let's talk about life. for a second. We just got back from vacation Friday at midnight, crazy dry from Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, straight all the way up the coast to Woodside, New York, 14 hours, five kids with a four-month-old and only two stops. So we made it. Thank you for praying. God is good. There's clapping. Oh, yeah. I am struggling with pride a little bit over that drive. I was very proud of that accomplishment. But I am very pro-vacation. If you are one of those people who have all of these unused vacation days built up that you've never used, I don't understand you. I don't get it. I love vacation. I love rest. I love not constantly having a text I'm trying to sort out in the back of my mind. I love not constantly wondering or worrying about that angry person or missing person or struggling person. Paul talks in 2 Corinthians 11-28 about the daily pressure on him of his anxiety for all the churches. It's real. So we rest, and I love to rest. And this last week, we were blessed to rest at my generous brother's beach house. These massive porches on the water, looking out over what is called Clubhouse Creek, which then leads out to Midway Inlet, right out into the Atlantic Ocean. And then we had views of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, on the other side. It was beautiful. I wrote this sermon outside on that porch, staring out over that water. There are few things I love more than running on that beach and reading on that porch, running with my girls on that beach and reading with my girls on that porch. And there were multiple times this last week when one or more of us would exclaim, this is the life, right? This is the life. And at times, being honest here, it really felt like it. I preach often about the goodness of work, how we're designed for work, how biblically we need work. We find fulfillment and satisfaction in work. We feel lost and purposeless and meaningless without work. But we've all thought this before. You know, is that really true? You know, is that definitely the case? Maybe that's true for everyone else. I don't know, but maybe, maybe not me. This is the life. Rest. Relax. Beach. Beauty. Food. Family. Paddleboard. Pools. Water. Watermelon. And in the course of all that, I was on a spin bike at Polly's Island Anytime Fitness using the Peloton app. If you've ever used the Peloton app, it's interesting. I can only limitedly use it. I can't use the women because they don't wear clothes, so I can't take their classes. I can't take the classes with a lot of the guys because For various reasons, they drive me crazy. But there are two British guys that are alright that I use. Ben Aldiss and Bradley Rose. Usually I bike and I listen to a book and I just watch what they're doing. But this time for some reason I was listening and the fitness instructor Bradley Rose closed my workout last Monday by saying, you have one life. Live it your way. That's where happiness comes from. Okay. Trouble. We know there's no wisdom to be found in fitness instructors, except for maybe some fitness wisdom. But he was saying... what I was feeling. Living life my way would be a vacation, beachy, easy way, and it was making me happy. And now here's him saying the exact same thing, and I'm like, uh-oh, this isn't good. And at the same time, as I mentioned earlier, I spent all of my vacation devotional time in the Psalms, and just a bunch of it in Psalm 119. Psalm 119 has just been really Messing with me. We just we just read it much of Psalm 119 is about life and reading through Psalm 119 again and again I read things like this verse 25 give me life and according to Your Word. Verse 37, give me life in Your ways. Verse 40, in Your righteousness give me life. Verse 50, Your promise gives me life. Verse 93, by Your precepts You have given me life. I could go on and on and on through the psalm. So do I truly find happiness living life my own way? This psalm seems to be saying that it's found in some other way. Our loves reveal our life. What we really love reveals what we really live for. What is it that really delights me? What is it that really gives me joy? More Psalm 119, verse 14. Did you notice some of these verses as we read them? In the way of your testimonies, I delight. Verse 16, I will delight in your statutes. Verse 20, my soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. Verse 24, your testimonies are my delight. Verse 47, I find delight in your commandments. Verse 70, I delight in your law. Verse 97, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. This was quite the vacation contrast for me. So I got vacation, the beach, this is the life, and then I've got the Psalms. It is God. And it is his word that gives life. It is God and his word that is delight and joy. And I'm constantly confronted with this. Do I believe that? Do you believe that? And what about death? What does death have to do with all of that? You see, John 11 is a story about life. I'm tempted to find life in vacation. John 11 is directing us to where life is found. True life, abundant life, eternal life, through the capital L life, Jesus Christ. Again, we've been saying the only ultimate solution to death is obviously life. And Christ has just said in chapter 10, verse 10, that He came that we may have life and have it abundantly. He has just said in verse 25, I am the resurrection and the life. And now here in our text this morning, we see the life who brings life confront the death that stains and stops life. And in so doing, just as Christ calls Mary to Himself, He is calling you to Himself. He is calling you and me with the claim that He is life itself and that you find your life only in Him. And I want that life then, and I want it now. Vacation life is good, but it is temporary. It is not real life. What if there really is an eternity? What if we really do live forever? Wouldn't I then be the greatest fool to live for a couple of weeks a year at the expense of forever? Wouldn't you? So what do we do as we are so tempted to find life in other things? Where do we turn? Well, we turn to God's word and we turn to Christ, of course. We need to be continually confronted with the claims of the Christ who is life. As I was being tempted to find ultimate life in these things, I needed the continual confrontation of Psalm 119 reminding me of where real life is found. We're getting to, next week, the great and grand miracle, the sign. That's next week, the raising of Lazarus from death to life. But let's not miss something hugely important this week first. As is so often the case, there is a simple, surfacy reading of this text that people just kind of lazily assume. I want us to consider this more carefully because this is actually much better than we think. What Christ is doing in these verses is actually much better than we think. I struggle to believe that true life is not found in the things of the world but in Him. And so what I need is a better understanding of His perfect person and His wonderful What do I fear? I fear the loss, the lack, the end of life. What do I need then? A better understanding of what Christ thinks and feels and does about death and does to provide for me life. Here we are going to see what happens when life confronts death. And it is here that I am convinced and compelled just a little bit more that Christ truly is life. So four simple points. I'm going to try to keep it simple. Four simple points to help us this morning. We're going to start with some context and see quite simply that Christ calls his people. But that's going to get us to the main point. It's going to be point two this week. I want us to see that Christ hates death. That's what's being communicated in this text. That's what Christ is feeling and responding to. Christ hates death. And we're going to see that in the context of point number three, Christ's great love for His people, and then in transitioning us to next week, we're going to see that Christ kills death. It is here that life is found. So let's read this text, this story about death and life and life confronting death. Remember, Lazarus was sick. Jesus waited. Lazarus has died. Now Jesus has come. Last time we saw Jesus reveal himself to Martha as the resurrection and the life. Now it's Mary's turn. That's where we are picking up. John chapter 11, I will read for you verses 28 through 37. Pay attention, this is what God wants to say to you today. When she, Martha, had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, the teacher is here and is calling you. And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying? Let's stop there. Let's go to the Lord and ask for His help in this time. Let's pray. Father, we are all of us very prone and tempted to seek for and find our life in the things of this world, to seek and find them anywhere else but You, the God who is life. Father, please help us in these next few minutes. Please help us to focus Please help us to attend to these things. Please help us to consider your steadfast love. Father, please help me to be clear. Please help me to be true, to point to Jesus Christ. Father, apart from you, we can accomplish nothing in this time, so we ask that you would help, please, the preaching of your word and the hearing of your word. Please, Father, help us to see Christ. Please draw us to him. Help us to take one little step further in finding our true life and our delight and our joy in him. Help us now, we pray, in the name of Jesus, amen. A point number one, Christ calls his people. I want to focus most of our time on verse 33. Verse 33 is the key verse in this text. So this will be first mostly context to get us to 33. I mentioned last time that we want to be careful with this text not to kind of over psychologize Martha and Mary too much. There's just a lot that we don't know about this story. We don't know why only Martha went to Jesus at first and Mary didn't go. Maybe Martha's more proactive. Maybe Mary's more reactive. Lots of people assume Martha's more cerebral and Mary's more emotional. We don't really know a whole lot. What we do know in verse 28 is that Martha moves directly from her encounter with Christ to her sister to facilitate her encounter with Christ. Martha meets Jesus and she wants others to meet Jesus. Pretty simple and obvious side application. When you have truly met the Christ that is truly life, you love and long for others to meet him. But that's not the point. Look at verse 28 and what Martha says to Mary. The teacher is here and is calling for you. A couple of quick observations about that verse. First, Martha calls Jesus the teacher. This is significant in the context of John's gospel, because John doesn't really use this term for Jesus very often. The synoptic, the other three gospels, use this for Jesus all the time. John uses it here, and who uses it here is significant. At first, we see that Jesus is a teacher, the teacher. And teachers obviously teach. Students, followers, disciples of teachers listen, and they learn. If you claim to be a Christian, call yourself a Christian, you are claiming to be a disciple, a student, a follower, a learner of Jesus. Are we learners, students of Jesus? I love this Spurgeon quote, he who does not long to know more of Christ knows nothing of him yet. Do you long to know Christ and know more of Christ? Are you a student of the Savior? He is a teacher. He teaches. As His followers, we listen and we learn. This is why we preach and teach. This is why we emphasize theology and doctrine. To care little for teaching and thinking about Christ is to care little for Christ. We are dealing here with an infinite object. the infinite object, an infinite person. We never come to the end. of Him. He's infinitely good. When I find something that I love, I give myself to it entirely. I want more and more of it, to know more and more of it. How much more than the infinite and eternal God of life? Christ is a teacher and He teaches us Himself. Are we learners? Are we learners of this Christ who teaches? But second, it's also worth noting the fact that we have here one woman talking to another woman about Jesus as the teacher. We kind of just gloss over this because we're just so used to this. But Jewish rabbis at this time refused to instruct women. It wouldn't have even been conceivable. They would never even have considered the possibility. And yet, here is Jesus, the rabbi, the teacher, as Martha and Mary's teacher. Mary sits at Jesus' feet in Luke 10, 38, listening to what he said, what he taught. Jesus teaches women. That's huge. It's increasingly the case today in our culture and in our churches more and more to criticize the Bible's teaching on gender and gender roles. And not just to criticize it or minimize it, but to increasingly just abhor it. and attack it. What do you mean that there are actually differences between men and women? That's sexist. What do you mean that women cannot be pastors? That's backwards and bigoted. And yet, the very idea that men and women are actually equal was utterly and absolutely foreign to all, for almost all of history. It is only God's word that declares the equal dignity of man and woman. From the beginning, in the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. There's nothing like that anywhere else. There's no other ancient texts or scriptures or creation myths that mention anything like that. Our correct understanding of the equal value of women comes from the scriptures. We now just assume what has been assumed nowhere else. And we now forget that the very idea comes from God's word. You remove the foundation of God's Word, you remove any true foundation for asserting the equal dignity and value of men and women. Our culture is so built upon and rooted in God's Word and yet it doesn't even know it and seeks to deny it. But all of these ideas that we so trumpet and proclaim come from God's Word. Jesus taught women. That was profoundly progressive at the time. Jesus had women disciples. That never happened. But note also that Jesus did not have women apostles. When he chose the 12, he chose 12 men. Equal does not mean identical. Differences and distinctions are good. My wife is not like me, and I am glad. Sometimes, we're going to have to have a whole sermon on gender and talk about some of these things. But this is not that time. For now, I simply want you to see that Jesus is the teacher. And He is the teacher of both men and women. And at that time, that was huge and game-changing and unheard of. Jesus taught women. And he's also the caller of both men and women. Jesus calls Mary. That's what we see in the verse. I don't want to make too much of this, because this is not what the text is exactly about. But do note that it is Christ who calls. We're going to see next week, Christ calls, Lazarus lives. Christ is a powerful, effective, compelling, life-giving call. That's the case physically and spiritually. And here Christ calls and Mary comes. That's always how it works. That's always the order. God initiates. We respond. But I titled this first point, Christ Calls His People, because that's the verb that the verse uses, but this could have also been Christ comes to his people, or Christ cares and comforts his people, but we'll consider that in point three. Yes, it's here Mary coming to Christ, but that has only become because Christ has first come to Mary. He has come to her in her need, in her loss, and in her pain. And note Mary's response. Look at verse 29. Christ calls. Mary comes quickly. Now look at verse 30. Jesus remains outside the village either for the purpose of privacy or I think it's probably just to be near the tomb so that he can do what he is about to do. He teaches and he acts. He weeps and he works. But we're not there yet. In verse 31, we see that some have come to mourn with Mary and Martha. Mourning was a big deal in their culture back then. I confess that I don't entirely understand it. Some of the Jewish scriptures, the Mishnah even legislates the requirement of you had to have at least one professional mourner and you had to have at least two professional musicians for the mourning. Period. In Mark 5, verse 38, upon the death of Jairus' daughter, it tells us that Jesus sees a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. There's much that is right about that, as we will see in a moment. But what I want us to see primarily is how Christ responds to death. And we want to pattern ourselves after the perfect person. Look at 32, Mary comes, she falls at Jesus' feet. Some say that's in worship, probably I think just in grief. Maybe it's a combination of both. I don't know entirely what to make of it, but many have pointed out that in the three main places we see Mary, Luke 11, here in John 11, and then next time in John 12, Mary's always found at the feet of Jesus. Whatever the specific reason, that is the right place to be found. But look at what she says to him in verse 32. Note how it's identical to what Martha said in verse 21. You can imagine them having said this to each other the last couple of days in their mourning. If only the Lord had been here, our brother would not have died. First, I love how comfortable both of them are with Christ, to pour out their heart to Him. That's what prayer is supposed to be, this pouring out of our hearts to the Lord. I don't think they are attacking or accusing or rebuking Jesus. I think they are hurting. And they know that Christ cares. They've already spoken of Christ's love for Lazarus in verse 3. Verse 5 has emphasized that Jesus loves these three. We're coming to that. But for now, all I want us to see is that Christ is there. Christ is present. He has come and He has called. He may not have acted exactly as they would have wished Him to act, but He has and is acting exactly as they needed Him to act. And this is one of the most important truths for us to get for the Christian life. He is always present. He is always working. He is always calling. What if we believed that? What if we could look beyond the immediacy and the often difficulty of our circumstances? I am so prone to get caught and stuck right here with what's right in front of me. But what if I could look beyond that, through that, and believe that He is good and that He is working always in all of those things? We all know Proverbs 3, 5, but we all forget Proverbs 3, 5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. And how much of my problems is reading my circumstances through my own understanding saying, hey, this is not good. Verse six, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths. We know that. And yet, when the first thing goes wrong, when things begin to get hard, we grumble, we question, we forget. But what if Christ is always working? and always pursuing, always calling. We know that He calls primarily through His Word. He is calling right now as His Word is preached, as He is hopefully biblically and properly proclaimed. He calls us through His Word. Are you learning? Are you listening? Not to me primarily, but to Him. But he also calls through the circumstances of life. This is his providence. The daily details, the minute-by-minute minutia of life. This is why I love to emphasize his particular providence. What if he's in everything, working behind and through everything, calling through everything? What if the goodness of vacation But my heart's temptation to trust in it and live for it and put my hope and my joy in it. What if that and the awareness of that is Him calling me and reminding me and working on me? This is good, but this is not ultimate. This is good, but this is not life. I am life. I'm trying to be a learner and a listener of the Teacher who claims to be life. Christ calls His people always. in and through everything. Listen to Him. Well, let's move. Here's the main thing I want to emphasize. Point number two. This is a story of death. In the midst of life, we are in death. We are surrounded by death constantly. It is coming for us all. We cannot live life without dealing with death. You must deal with death. What can be done about death? What does the Christ who claims to be life, what does he think about death? Point number two, Christ hates death. Where is that in the text? Well, look at verse 33. Here's where I think this is often preached poorly, sometimes just lazily and simplistically. Let's look at it closer. Let's consider the words. Let me read it again first. Listen to 33. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And then there's verse 35. When I was growing up, it was sort of a Sunday school joke, right? Verse 35. Scripture memory time, okay. How about John 11, 35? Jesus wept, nailed it. The shortest verse in the New Testament. In English, Technically, not the shortest verse in the New Testament, though. It's eidai krusen ho yesus. Forgive my poor pronunciation. That is 16 letters in the Greek. 1 Thessalonians 5.16 is shorter. It's 14 letters in the Greek. Rejoice always. And now there's technically even a shorter verse. Luke 20, verse 30. And the second. That's the whole verse. And the second. It's the context of the Sadducees coming to Jesus. They're trying to trap Him. What about this woman who gets married, he dies, and she's married again, and married again, married again. She's got these seven husbands in the resurrection, whose husband is she, right? They're trying to trap Jesus. It doesn't... That verse is actually only 12 letters in the Greek, so it's technically the shortest verse, but let's remember the verse numbers are not inspired. Some of them aren't very helpful. There's actually some manuscript questions regarding Luke 20, verse 30. If you go look at it in the King James, it's a lot longer. So let's set aside Luke 20, verse 30. For our purposes, I want us to consider for a moment the two shortest verses in the New Testament together. I am plagued by the command in 1 Thessalonians 5.16 to rejoice always. I am not a naturally joyful person. I struggle with this. I'm learning. I have a long way to go. I am grumpy. I want to be glad. I keep saying, you keep hearing me say grace makes us glad. I'm talking to myself. I'm talking to myself. But I want to draw a connection between rejoice always And Jesus wept. I want to try and argue that these two shortest verses, I want to argue that you can only rejoice always because Jesus wept. And so here's the question. Why did Jesus weep? What was Jesus weeping over? Look at 33 again. Here's the question. What does it mean that Jesus was deeply moved and greatly troubled? And what was he deeply moved and greatly troubled about? You'd be surprised at how much disagreement there is over this verse. I'm sure that I won't solve it all, but I'm fairly convinced that the simple, surfacy interpretation that is so common is somewhat lacking. What is that interpretation? Well, basically, it's that Mary is sad, and so Jesus is sad. Or we take the fact that we have the same word here, Jesus weeping, and we connect it to Romans 12, 15, weep with those who weep, even though it's actually a different word in the Greek. And we say, look, Jesus is weeping with those who weep. Look how sympathetic and empathetic Jesus is. And listen, there's some important truth to that. That will be our next point. But if we leap to that and miss this, we miss the main point. A far more important point. We miss what it is that we really need in the midst of our pain and in the face of our death. Sympathy is good. Let me be clear before I say things that I'm about to say. Let me lay all my cards on the table. It's no secret that I do not have the spiritual gift of sympathy. I greatly struggle with how poor of a comforter I am. Some of it is wiring. Much of it must be rooted in pride and selfishness. I'm aware of it and working on it by God's grace. I think that's why God keeps giving me little girls to learn how to be more sympathetic. And so consider all of this that I'm about to say in light of that fact that we all have our biases and wirings that influence and infect all that we say and do. And listen, we very much do need and we do have Hebrews 4.15, a faithful high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. Amen and amen. But that's just not what this verse is primarily about. In the Greek, it's much more clear that Jesus is not sad, but that Jesus is mad. In verse 33, where you read, greatly troubled, it's just one word in the Greek. And the Greek word is not a sympathy word, but an animosity word. In the only other two spots we find it in the New Testament, Mark 1.43 and 14.5, it's translated as sternly warning and strongly scolding. Literally, in kind of other Greek literature, this word means to snort. It was used in reference to the sound that warhorses make, like in their approach to battle. One dictionary defines this word as to snort or roar with rage. Another, an expression of strong indignation. Another, that it is used to express indignant displeasure with something. Jesus here is not expressing empathy or grief. It's just not what this word means. Jesus is expressing anger and outrage. That's what deeply moved. That's why deeply moved may not be the best Translation. Because we cannot help but read that through the lens of our hyper-sentimentalized, emotionally charged culture that demands absolute acceptance and affirmation of everything that everyone feels, no matter what. Our culture conditions us to read this as sympathy. That's just not what it is. Sympathy is good. We're coming to that. But this is first. This is better. This is what you need. Jesus is not sad, but mad. And so D.A. Carson says strongly on this verse, it is inexcusable to reduce this emotional upset to the effects of empathy, grief, pain, or the like. This is so much more than an expression of human sympathy. Here's B.B. Warfield. Jesus approached the grave of Lazarus in a state not of uncontrollable grief, but of inexpressible anger. The emotion which tore at his breast and clamored for utterance was just rage. That's what this word means. I like that. Just rage. And so if that's what it means that Jesus was deeply moved and greatly troubled, well then the next question is why? About what? What is Jesus angry about? And some argue that it's unbelief. That's actually not that bad of an argument. I think that could be part of it. We've seen again and again how Christ has clearly been revealing himself. And we've seen again and again how the heart of what Christ continually reveals about himself is that he is life. He is God, and God is life. Thus, it is in knowing Him that we find life. Last time we considered the fifth I AM statement. I AM the resurrection and the life. Christ is telling us who He is. And we looked at how all of the seven I AM statements, these self-revelation statements, all revolve around life. Bread, light, vine, all life. This is who Christ is. Life itself. This is the thing that he has come to do. Give life and give it abundantly. And now in the face of death, he's surrounded by unbelief. We keep seeing how increasing revelation is met only with increasing rejection. In verse 37, when the Jews see his strong response at the tomb, some of them say, well, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying? I think it's kind of sarcastic, kind of just unbelief. Even Mary and Martha, who he loves, who also clearly love and trust him, they still don't entirely get it yet. Martha has just confessed her faith in Christ in verse 27. The Christ who has just said He's the resurrection and the life. But if you look at verse 39, when He tells her to open the tomb, we'll see that she still doesn't quite believe or understand what it is that He's going to do for Lazarus. She's like, ah, Jesus, you know, is going to kind of smell. She doesn't quite get it. So maybe Jesus is angry about rampant, persistent unbelief. which is we must remember the chief of sins. We all have our little hierarchy of sins that we create that we consider the worst. It's generally the sins of other people that are at the top and ours are conveniently kind of towards the bottom. But we rarely put unbelief at the top of that list when in fact it is the top. No God of all power, beauty, love, grace, the God that created me and sustains me and gives me life on whom I'm entirely dependent. No, I do not trust you. No, I do not believe you. No, I do not love you. You are not good. I know better than you do, God. There's nothing worse than that. There's no greater offense, crime, sin, evil than unbelief. So maybe he's angry at the unbelief that is surrounding him. That's possible, it could be part of it. But, I think in the context, remember our context, death is our context. In that context, then, it is more likely that it is death itself that Jesus is outraged over. It is death that causes this angry, indignant, enraged response in Christ. And if that's correct, then this is really good news. Because remember, death is the problem. We're so prone to be consumed by and assume that all sorts of other little things are the problem. Work stuff, relationship stuff, money stuff, just general sadness stuff. Again, those are not small things. But it is very easy for me to focus on these things and entirely miss the fact that I have a death problem. That it is coming. that you must deal with death. And whether you are conscious of it or not, it's there, it's lingering, it affects and influences everything that you do. And thus, if Christ here is not just expressing sympathy for the sadness, but outrage for the death, then we can have great hope. Here is where we're starting to see that we could maybe find some sort of more significant, more lasting joy. I'm seeking to learn, to find it in the big things, the ultimate things, the life things. And seeing here what Christ thinks about death can do you all kinds of good. I think that it is death that is the object of His wrath. He has come to deal with the death that must be dealt with. Our death, our deserved death, the wages of sin is death. We sin. The unbelief that says no to the God of life deserves death. The sin that separates us from the God of life is death. And so when Christ says that He comes, that we may have abundant life, this is what He's talking about. This is what must be dealt with first for us to have the life that we have forfeit. And so I want you to see the beautiful balance that we find in this text when it comes to death. We've seen Christ in verse 11 call death nothing more than sleep. But now we see Him here indignant, angry, outraged at the reality of death. How does that work? How do these two things go together? How can Christ call death sleep and then a few verses later rage against its very existence? It's only because of next week. It's only because of point four and what He's about to do. And the very reason that God has come and become man. It is because of death. Christ has come to defeat the death that so plagues and poisons His good creation. He is the God of life. And thus He is by nature opposed to the very existence of death. Now, yes, there's great mystery here. Yes, we know that His sovereignty rules over even sin and death. He ordains it. He uses it. He works it into His mysterious plan. And again, that's our only hope. But I used to really struggle with this. I used to really struggle with the problem of evil, its existence, how to reconcile its reality with the reality of the God of perfect power and perfect goodness. struggle so much with it anymore. That's not to say that I've solved the problem of evil. I've got it. Come to me if you want me to solve. No, I'm not saying that. But I have found that the bigger God is in my mind, the smaller the problem of evil is in my mind. And whatever all the particulars, the cross provides the clarity that we need. These verses provide the clarity that we need. I appreciate the life that I have been given, that I have been graced, more when I understand the death that I chose, the death that I deserved, and the death that Christ died to give me that life. So, in part, the answer to the question of why evil is revealed here in Christ's response to death. It is against the backdrop of the darkness that the light shines forth all the more. It is against the backdrop of the death that the life shines forth all the more. It is in the context of my death and what Christ thinks about it and does about it that I can begin to see Him and begin to see life for what it really is and how good it really is and thus actually begin to desire it and find it only where it is found. And so evil exists in part to further reveal to us the infinite glory of Christ and so draw us to He who is life and it exists so that Christ might come and defeat it, and swallow it up, and suffer it, and kill it. And I'm getting ahead of myself, but what we are seeing in Christ here is so much more than sympathy. It's so much better than sympathy. In His indignant response to the reality of death, He's showing you not just that He feels something for you, He very much does, that is good, but also that He does something for you. something infinitely and eternally good. Sympathy is good, but so much of our sympathy these days is nothing more than an angry post about something on Facebook. And then what? Well, nothing. We've posted and we're done. Nothing's done. Not Christ. He is angry and he acts. He feels something and then he does something. This is the sympathetic Savior that you need. This is the solution to the death problem that you need. He is deeply moved and greatly troubled about our sin and death, and then he does something about it. Christ hates death. And point number three, that's because Christ loves. his people." I don't want to overstate my point. I probably have. Nuance is not my strength. But the Greek word just means anger. It's that simple. But his anger at the death does not exclude his sympathy and his love for Mary, for his people. And in fact, the two are intimately wed together. I don't want to minimize the sympathy. I want to emphasize the sympathy by emphasizing what that sympathy really is and does. You probably don't remember our very first point like six weeks ago when we began this chapter, but our very first point in John chapter 11 was God loves his people. It's the same thing here. Christ loves His people. We cannot emphasize that enough. We cannot work hard enough to make sure and understand that rightly because the love of God is deeper still. The love of God is so much better than we tend to think that it is. We've defined love as seeking the good of the loved. It's so much better than just, oh, I like you, and you're all right, or, you know, I accept you and I affirm you. No, love actively seeks the good of the loved. And so, read verse 3, in light of that, Lazarus is he whom Jesus loved. Read verse 5, in light of that, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Verse 33, yes, Jesus is angry about death, but it doesn't have to be either or. It's both and. Verse 33, when He saw Mary weeping. Jesus is moved by the mourning of this one that He loves. And there's a whole lot there in that statement that we cannot get into. Listen, God cannot be moved. God does not change. God is wonderfully not like us. And we desperately need Him to be not like us. You do not need a God who is like you. No, God cannot be acted upon. God cannot change. He is the unchangeable, impassable God that is our rock and our security. And God, that God, the impassable, unchangeable God, has become man. Yet the most amazing thing that has ever happened, God has become man. And it is Christ as the Son of God, the Word of God. Remember, words reveal, Christ reveals. Thus, it is in Christ that we see God most clearly. And here, in his reaction, we see very clearly that God loves his people and that God cares about his people. Christian, hurting, struggling, suffering, maybe wondering, no, no, no, listen, God cares. God sees that. God knows that. God cares about that far more than you care about that because God loves his people. We will never be able to plumb the depths of the truth that the God-man weeps for his And Christ is no stoic, unfeeling, uncaring robot. Christ is the perfect person. And here we see Him feel deeply, care intensely, and love perfectly. Oh, how we need the truth revealed here of the depths of Christ's care for His people. And instead of assuming that, we need to be astounded by that. Instead of expecting that and demanding that, yeah, of course God loves me. No, no, we need to be shocked by that. We need to be stunned by that. Psalm 8, 3, David cries out, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? Later, Psalm 144, verse 3, oh Lord, what is man that you regard him or the son of man that you think of him? You see, this Christ is God, the infinite, indescribable God, the God that is not like us, but who inexplicably cares for us. The God who is the mind behind all that exists, bigger than all that exists, over all that exists, present in all that exists, mindful of all that exists, ordaining, orchestrating, directing all that exists. Imagine how big He must be. It is He, the infinite Creator, mindful of all that is right now also specifically and intimately mindful of you and of me. Finite, forgetful, selfish, sinful, me. That's love. What is man? What am I that he is mindful of me? That's love. That's care. Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is Yahweh, God, all that God. Yahweh is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Again, that's amazing. Nowhere else you're going to find it. Everywhere else God is either transcendent and big and distant and all-powerful, but not close. Or he's very eminent and close and a lot like us, but not very great and not very powerful. It is only in God, Yahweh, Christ, that we see both of those things come together. Transcendence, eminence, perfect power, and then presence and love and compassion. Read and rest in the repeated refrain of Psalm 136. Repeated 26 times. What do you so need to know that God repeats it 26 times in one chapter? His steadfast love endures forever. His steadfast love endures forever. Again and again and again. This is our God. The God who loves His people steadfastly, And again, to do that forever, steadfast in love, this death thing must be dealt with first. And so here we see such a beautiful revelation of that fact as Christ weeps at the tomb of Lazarus because of His great love, because true love seeks the good of the love. He weeps and He acts. He hates death because He is life. He hates death because He loves His people and created them for life with Him. Yes, He expresses great caring sympathy. But it's so much more and better than that. Because He is life and loves His people, thus will seek their good, and that good is life, He must then do something about their death. And that's why He has come. Point number four, don't worry, I just want to mention it and I want you to prepare us and get us ready for next week. Point number four, Christ kills death. That's why he has come. That's what he has done with death. That's what he is going to reveal to us in the resurrection of Lazarus next week. And that's a decent little summary of the gospel in three words. Christ kills death. Death is our problem. The gospel is the good news about what God has done about our problem, our sin problem. We can do nothing about it. We are already sinners. We are already dead in our trespasses and sins. Thus God must do everything. And that is precisely what He has done in Christ. The Christ who is life come to die. The Christ who is life come to take your place and take your death and die so that you could live. That's the gospel. That's what you need. That's where you find life. In Him, the one who is life, who dies to defeat death. I'll say it again and again. What if that's actually true? What if you were dead in your trespasses and sins, but God? But God raised you up. God made you alive together with Christ. And what if it was the death of life itself that was required for God to be able to do that? How much better than is that than a week at the beach, right? How silly and little and foolish that I continue to struggle to find my purpose and my identity and my delight and my joy in my life in anything apart from Him. Nothing compares to this. Nothing compares to Him. If I am created in the image of God, if I am created with eternity placed in my heart, then nothing can fill me, nothing can satisfy me, nothing can truly give me life and joy except for the eternal God Himself, who created me for Himself, who created me to know Him and to be known by Him. And so it starts with knowing about Him. And knowing about Him starts with Christ. And look at who this Christ is and what He does. Look at His great compassion, loving us enough to take on death and hell for us. To give Himself in some profoundly mysterious way to death and hell for us. And then look at His great power. killing death itself. Next week is the king of kings killing the king of terrors. It's one of the greatest book titles of all time. It's the death of death in the death of Christ. That's life. Life, the only solution to death. Life only found in Christ, the God who is life. And in verse 26, he asks us all, like he asks Martha, do you believe? this. We read earlier the beginning of Psalm 119. I'll close with this. We read verse 17. Please read Psalm, spend time in Psalm 119. It would do your soul much good. It's doing my soul much confliction, conflicting right now. It's messing with me. But verse 17, Psalm 119. Deal bountifully with your servant that I may live. Do you believe that life is only found in the gracious and bountiful dealing of God with you and with your soul? It is only this that makes sense of much of what the psalm says that I so struggle with. I delight in your statutes. Your testimonies are my delight. My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. Is that weird? No. Because those statutes and testimonies and rules and words and laws ultimately point to and reveal to us this Christ, the Christ of John 11. It is Him that we are delighting in and longing for. And it comes by the grace of God as we see Him for who He is and what He does and what a revelation we have of all that in John 11. You know, I just generally assume that most of you are probably better than I am. But I also know that if I struggle with these things, you probably struggle with some of them as well. And I know that I am still so prone to seek and believe that life, this is the life, right, sitting on a porch, that life is found in the things of this world. Look at this Christ. Look at this Christ who claims to be life. Look at what He has done that I may have life and have it abundantly. And so I want so desperately to find that more and more in Him. To love and delight more and more in Him. And it starts with us together as we seek Him in His Word and study Him and worship Him Listen, point one another to Him. I need you to encourage me in the things of the Lord. I need you to point me to Christ. I need to be pointing you to Christ. We need to talk to one another about Jesus and about the things of God. Christ is life. He loves us. He dies for us, that we might live and love Him. My prayer is that we would all of us find our life more and more in Him. If you would bow with me, let me close this time with a word of prayer. Father, we confess that You are life itself, We confess that Christ is life. You reveal that to us so clearly in your word. But Father, we confess that we are so prone to find and seek that life elsewhere, to seek it in the things of the world, to seek it in ourself, our accomplishments, our money, our beauty, our vacation, our relationships, our whatever it is. Father, please show us where we look to for life. Please reveal to us right now our hearts and our loves and what it is that we really love and live for. And we pray that through your word, you would at the same time be directing and pointing us to Christ. Father, increase our affection for him. We pray that a spirit-given affection for Christ would more and more drive out those competing affections for the things of the world. Father, we thank you that you know us and that you forgive us. Father, forgive us for our idolatry, for our unbelief. Forgive us for how foolishly we tend to love things more than we love you. Father, I pray that you would help me to love Christ above all else and to be a means through which my family and my church and others see the goodness and the glory of Christ and long to love and live for him. Father, we thank you that we are dead in our trespasses and sins, but that you have made us alive together in Christ. I pray that that would thrill our souls and define and drive our entire lives. Father, help us please. Do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And we ask all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.